Last week I attended a Lean Architecture session hosted by Xebia. Xebia presented their approach to applying Lean Architecture with a mixture of Kanban and Scrum. Architecture in the context of this session was not as much Software Architecture but more Enterprise Architecture. Now what is the difference?

Software Architecture
The way I interpret Software Architecture is applying construction principles and practises when building a Software system. This means, the scope is limited to the needs of a specific system. Ofcourse you need to take the system boundry into account but you are typically not in control of the surrounding systems.

Enterprise Architecture
Refers to designing Software systems that are collaborating with each other. As you can see the scope of Enterprise Architecture is much broader because you are looking at multiple Software systems communicating and collaborating with each other. As a consequence in Enterprise Architecture there are a lot more stakeholders involved representing their piece of the Enterprise Architecture puzzle, communication between stakeholders is key to getting things done.

During the Lean Architecture session Xebia explained the principles behind Lean Architecture. It was made clear that principles can be applied to practically any situation but that practices are very environment specific. It is the job of an Architect to take the principles an make them practically usable within an organisation.

It is becoming much more a challenge for Architects to get organizations collaborating internally. Soft skills of Architects should have high priority IMHO.